From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Jan 27 1998 - 11:16:49 MST
EvMick <EvMick@aol.com> writes:
> Also...we're no where near being short on land.
Yes, there is plenty of land, but that is not the point. The point is
that you grow the plants right in the middle of the city, next to the
consumers. Very low transport costs, and you can get extremely fresh
vegetables directly (with no soil to wash away!). Besides, if you keep
the hydroponics sealed, you can avoid many pests and have no need for
pesticides.
This will not likely replace all crops, but some vegetables can most
likely be profitably grown in this way. There is already a mall
somewhere in the US (saw it on Discovery Channel) were this is done,
apparently earning real money.
> I currently have two John Deere on my trailer, enroute to California. Big
> Brutes...able to plow square miles per day. It'd take SOME skyscraper to
> match the surface area these guys can cover.
It seems that you think of agriscrapers as something similar to normal
agriculture. But if you look at real hydroponics, it is a quiet affair
with plants tending themselves in plastic nutrient vats and electrical
elevators to bring down the vats for harvest. No need for huge
machinery (or rather, it is part of the building).
> Oh...by the way...with an increase in CO2 content in the
> air...farming becomes more effecient.
Depends a lot on how the climate changes. I seem to recall an old
study made of productivity of wheat and other crops as a function of
temperature and moisture. Some areas of the US were very near the
maximum for at least one crop (I think it was wheat), and any change
would decrease productivity sharply. It is not easy to move farms to
suit a changed climate (although it would be nice to see wineyeards in
the hills of northern Sweden :-).
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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